


This smile not ended

by the_Orange_one



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, casual klepto Aidan Turner, idk I talk about Aidan's teeth a lot maybe too much, no plot. no porn... what the fuck is this, words that were fun for me to imagine Dean saying in a kiwi accent, yes by sharing clothes I mean that Dean's gray scoop neck tee will be making an appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_Orange_one/pseuds/the_Orange_one
Summary: "Aidan remembers how cold it had been so high up in the mountains, how he'd borrowed Dean's glasses for the glare on the road, how they'd finally stopped needing to fill the silence. He remembers what he'd been thinking with perfect clarity:Maybe he feels it too."Aidan and Dean travel the world before, during, and after falling in love.





	This smile not ended

**Author's Note:**

> I fell in love with these two last November and I felt the need to post this before I fell out of love. I can feel myself starting to, so I figured there's no time like the present to finally finish a project! mazel tov to myself for uploading something under this pseud for the first time in 4 literal whole years i guess? like, feels good.
> 
> title comes from [ye olde brick](http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/321/) goodbye. :(  
> Also can we just pretend I wrote this in like 2015? Instead of... literally seven years after The Hobbit came out? Great. thanks.
> 
> Low-key this is dedicated to Alaina @killaidanturner for writing such gorgeous poetry, bc she's absolutely the only reason i have any feelings at all about Dean O'Gorman. Alaina, idk u at all, but you are an inspiration and also how dare you make me feel all these things. thanks for my life.

 

> _“This is the kind of movie where it changes everybody’s lives.”_
> 
> \- Prosthetics Supervisor Tami Lane, [“An Unexpected Journey” Production Vlogs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCVxDbqgu6o)

* * *

Dean can’t really say when he started falling for Aidan. It wasn’t at first sight, no matter how poetic that would’ve been. He wishes he could say it started on the first day they met, the first time he saw Aidan smile. He wishes he could say it started with “So. You’re the new Fili,” but it didn’t, really.

Dean is home when it starts.

Right now, home means his rental house in Seatoun. He and Aidan had stayed up late, just talking, which wasn’t abnormal for them. It’s a pattern they’d slowly settled into over the first half of principal photography. Aidan hangs around Dean’s place—or Dean around at his—more nights than not. It’s nice to sit in each other’s presence away from the hustle and bustle at Stone Street, and as the months drag on they talk less and less and just allow themselves to unwind in the other’s presence. 

This evening, Aidan’s been languishing on the armchair reading a book he borrowed from Dean, after Dean finally gave up the ghost and stopped schlepping his things back and forth across the island and just brought over a bookshelf in the back of his car. As it is, Aidan’s got the book open on his lap, but from where Dean’s sitting, he looks like he’s closer to falling asleep than actually reading it.

Aidan suddenly lifts his head with a jerky motion. "Shit, it's like... 2:45." He's slurring his words out of exhaustion, but he still manages to sound mildly alarmed as he squints at his lock screen. "We better get to bed," he mutters, beginning to stumble towards the door and begin the long trek down the block to his own house.

Without moving the rest of his body, Dean tips his head and looks out the window of the living room. It's dark enough out he can see stars, with the only artificial light coming from the street lamp on the corner. He looks back towards his foyer and sees that Aidan’s got Dean's throw blanket bundled around himself like a serape and he's whining about how cold it probably is outside. Which is at least 60% bullshit, because it’s summer and Dean  _ knows _ he wants to steal the blanket. 

Dean finally caves when Aidan almost falls on his head trying to put his boots on one-handed while holding the blanket toga closed with the other, and waves a hand from his roost on the couch. "Jus— jus' crash here." This part—giving in to Aidan’s unnecessarily dramatic and roundabout way of asking to spend the night—is also routine.

Aidan makes a small noise of victory and kicks the boot back off with more vigor than necessary. He minces over to the bedroom with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders and immediately faceplants into the mattress. "Hhhngh," he grunts.

Dean is inclined to agree. He climbs up onto the bed and turns on his side, slipping under the blanket and holding it up until Aidan manages to slide under as well. Dean drops off to sleep so fast he doesn't even get the chance to register Aidan ditching the prized throw blanket in a tangled mess at their feet.

In the morning, Dean wakes to a fuzzy head and a warm bed. It takes less than two seconds to identify Aidan snoring away behind him, and he thinks about going straight back to sleep. He's extremely cozy buried under the comforter with the added warmth of another body, and Aidan has cuddled up pretty close overnight. It would be easier, he reasons, to stay in bed. 

Then his alarm buzzes in his pants pocket.  _ Damn _ .

He fumbles around til he gets it silenced and checks his watch. Eight AM. Well, it's probably for the best they get up now, call’s at noon today. Reluctantly, he shuffles around to his other side, facing Aidan. "Good morning," he says gently.

"Hmm," Aidan hums. "Morning."

Dean chuckles at Aidan's gravely morning voice. "C'mon, open your eyes, Aid. It's after eight."

Aidan's eyes open right away. "Okay." He's grinning.

“Jesus, what kind of life do we lead that waking up after sunrise feels like such a luxury,” Dean complains. “And I'm still so tired.” Aidan murmurs in agreement but it doesn’t sound like his heart’s in it. Dean looks over and Aidan's eyes are searching his face. "What are you looking for?" He wonders. The words touch down between them. Aidan doesn't break eye contact, and he doesn't speak for a long moment.  

"I don't know." 

Dean knows his answer is there in the silence, in the way he's holding his gaze unwaveringly, in how Dean feels pinned underneath his stare. Their faces are too close together and it's too telling when neither of them begin to move away, to put space between them. Dean notices himself becoming distracted by Aidan's eyelashes and the way his hair looks against the sheets. The moment feels warm and weighted, brimming with the words Aidan won't say and Dean can't hear.

Dean has barely decided what he wants when he's already reaching out for Aidan, pulling their bodies closer together so their thighs, arms, noses are touching. He takes a shaky breath in, and then he's kissing him. 

He brings a hand up to Aidan's face and learns by touch the way he knows his curls looked on the pillow, the way his jaw connects to the line of his neck, the way he arches into Dean's touch at every point where they come together.

Slowly, firmly, he presses Aidan back into the mattress, rolling on top of him and tangling both hands in his hair. He lets Aidan's hands feel their way up his back and tries to guess what Aidan's tongue will do next as they kiss. Aidan bites at his upper lip with sharp teeth and Dean lets him have his way, groaning quietly into his open mouth at the sting.

Dean's hands make their way to the waist of Aidan's jeans and he rolls his hips down, pinning the other man underneath his weight. Aidan gasps against him and Dean's mouth slips down to his neck, sucking at the juncture of his shoulder and kissing around to his Adam's apple, back up to his jaw. "Deano," Aidan moans roughly. "Oh, yes.  _ Dean. _ "

"Yeah, babe," Dean whispers into his neck. He keeps working their hips together, practically grinding on Aidan's thigh. Jeans aren't the most comfortable to make out in, but Dean doesn't mind, and Aidan doesn't seem to either. He doesn't want to pull away, wants to stay pressed as close as he can.

Dean lifts his head, kisses Aidan again, and lets him thrust up against his leg, each press of their hips winding some awful molten feeling up tight inside his chest, like liquid gold. His breathing is ragged and heavy, and he's sure his own eyes match how Aidan's look right now—dark and intense as he's ever seen them. And, God, Aidan looks beautiful. Dean kisses him again, and tells him so, earning a gasped out moan as Aidan’s hands come up to clutch at Dean's biceps.

"God, Dean," he chokes out. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

Dean's got his nose smashed against Aidan's temple, and he’s fresh out of coherent thoughts. He gasps for breath. "I'm close already. Aid."

"Yeah, yeah," Aidan urges, and his hands tighten as he pushes up harder against him.

"C'mon."

"Please.  _ De _ ."

And Dean's coming in his pants, because this is his life now, and because he can never refuse Aidan Turner. "Oh. Mm, Aid." He swears because Aidan is coming, too, and he looks a lot hotter doing it. Jesus, they didn’t even get their trousers unbuttoned.

They don’t stay there very long, neither of them really willing to chance missing their call time. Aidan leans over and kisses him again, warm and slow. When they break apart, he’s smiling, and Dean smiles back. He feels giddy as fuck. He wants to stay in this feeling forever. He settles for kissing Aidan one last time and then rolling off him and getting up to take off his disgusting clothes.

Aidan technically doesn’t need to be at the studio til almost an hour after Dean, because of all the stupid prosthetics he’s exempt from, but he claims the shower first anyway and eats breakfast with Dean afterwards before they drive over together and hanging out in his trailer until they’re called for wardrobe.

It’s remarkably easy, settling in together after getting each other off, like it’s something they’ve done before. It sort of scares Dean, the way he and Aidan are continuing as if nothing had happened, but he can’t figure out why. He’s not going to worry about it right now. Aidan beats him at FIFA for a third time and Dean pushes the worry to the back of his mind, smiling back at him before he leaves for the makeup trailer with a promise they’ll find each other at lunch. Because everything is normal. Nothing to worry about.

* * *

 

Dean hasn’t been in a proper photography studio for far too long. He eventually persuades Adam and Aidan to come back to his house to let him mess around behind the lens for a bit. He’s got a white bed sheet hanging in the back of his garage that Adam calls “a poor excuse for a studio,” which Dean takes offense at, even if Adam does have a point.

“He’s kinda right, Deano.” Aidan is laughing, the traitor. Dean pouts, but he’s smiling, too. It’s nice to hang out with these two off set, and not just because he doesn’t have to wear a prosthetic nose and rubber fingers.

“Oh whatever,” Dean grumbles. “You’re here, aren’t you?” Adam continues to snicker and Dean grins at him. “You first, then?”

Adam agrees. “Your first victim,” he laughs.

“Yeah, yeah. You love it.”

Adam certainly does. He’s a great subject, and after a while Dean starts just messing around with him. He snaps an unflattering picture right as he’s got his mouth open, telling another weird story about his birthday last year or something and Adam shoots Dean a look.

“I know your game, O’Gorman.”

“Oh, do you?” Dean takes another picture. Satisfied, he looks around for Aidan, who’d gone inside to get something to drink after he’d gotten set up with Adam. “Aidan, stop smoking and come let me take your picture,” he yells when he locates him just outside the door on the driveway.

Adam makes a big production of waving Aidan over into place so that he’s way too close to the camera, and Dean takes a few wonderfully blurry pictures of Adam’s nose and goofy smile really close up, with his hand on Aidan’s left arm where he’s just out of frame.

“You sure you don’t want to take my picture with the cig?” Aidan asks cheekily, finally managing to wrestle Adam off him and puffing a huge cloud of smoke at Dean.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Actually, yeah. Just back up a step, would you?” Aidan looks way too pleased with himself, so Dean only takes two photos before he makes him put out the cigarette. “You are not as cool as you think you are,” he accuses. “Also, I hate you a little bit for wearing a white shirt. You’re gonna blend right into the background.” He gestures to the white sheet.

“I kinda feel like that’s your fault, and not mine,” Aidan says. “Do you want me to change?”

It’s a perfectly good suggestion, and Dean nods, checking what he’s got on. “Yeah, let’s just swap.” 

He tries his best not to feel weird, since they’ve been shirtless in front of each other before—plenty of times, both on set and at home—but Aidan is gorgeous and very distracting and he doesn’t want to stare while they’re in front of Adam. But maybe he’s allowed to stare? Since they’re kind of hooking up? He shakes his head at himself. “Okay, put on the jacket again?” he asks, then clears his throat to distract himself from the fact that he now smells like Aidan’s deodorant. He starts fiddling with the camera. The dark gray looks better, for sure. Through the view screen, he sees Aidan pull the jacket on over Dean’s favorite shirt. He tells himself to focus on taking pictures. That’s what they’re here to do.

Aidan runs a hand through his hair to settle it back into place and squares his shoulders to the camera again. “Is this better?” he asks. The camera flashes as he’s speaking, and he raises an eyebrow at Dean.

“Yeah,” Dean replies, already running different angles through his head. “Yeah, definitely better. Cross your arms, please,” he directs. Aidan complies.

* * *

 

The afternoon before Aidan flies back to the UK, Dean comes over just as he’s trying to cram the rest of his clothes into an already full suitcase because he hadn’t bothered to fold them first. It’s the end of filming and Aidan’s been dragging his feet around the studio because the more he thinks about it, the less he’s ready to leave. He doesn’t want to leave New Zealand, he doesn’t want to leave the family they’ve made within the cast and crew after so many weeks spent together, and he doesn’t want to leave Dean. He’s been putting off packing his things until the last minute because one, he’s been crazy busy, and two, he’s been crazy in denial. He just doesn’t want to leave.

“In here,” he yells, elbow deep in T-shirts, why the fuck does he have so many T-shirts?

“Christ, Aido, you look heated.”

Aidan whips around, running a hand through his hair. His bedroom, at a glance, looks like a tornado’s come through. He himself probably looks a nervous wreck. “Do I really?” he wheezes out. Dean just chuckles and picks his way past the mess in the doorway. He’s wearing the boots that Aidan really likes. The ones he’s thought about stealing once or twice.

“Sure do,” he nods, smirking at the state of Aidan’s closet. Aidan emphatically does not roll his eyes, although Dean's outfit is currently distracting him from packing and that sort of feels like cheating. He’s wearing a cardigan that looks very cosy. The sleeves are long enough to cover Dean’s hands.

Aidan looks back up and smiles, a shade self-deprecating to show that he’s grateful to Dean for coming by. Dean probably came here for a reason and he has a way of redirecting Aidan away from stressful things, so Aidan lets him come farther into the room and waits him out. 

“I, uh. Just wanted to give you something before you left,” Dean says.

“Oh?” Aidan takes the envelope Dean hands out for him and has a small internal debate over whether he should open it now or if he’s meant to wait until Dean’s gone. Until  _ he’s  _ gone, he corrects himself. Dean’s only driving back to his house at the other end of the North Island. Aidan is flying to an island literally halfway across the world.

Dean glances down at his feet. “Yeah, they’re just—well, I suppose I realized they should belong to you,” he finishes cryptically.

Okay, then. “Cheers. Thanks, buddy.” Aidan shuffles the envelope in his hands and smiles at him, feeling his heart clench when Dean meets his eyes. There’s something there. He knows he isn’t imagining it. He doesn’t know what’s happening to them, doesn’t know where they’re headed, but he wants to get there as soon as he possibly can. 

Then Dean excuses himself quietly and then Aidan’s alone in his house again. He sighs his frustrations out wearily, then sits directly on top of his suitcase in defeat.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

When he gets home 52 hours later, exhausted but too jittery to sleep, he pulls the envelope out of his carry-on. It's photographs, postcard sized, and they’re all of Aidan. There are somewhere between twenty and thirty photos, from the beginning of shooting right up until the end. Aidan takes each one out individually, and sees Dean has labeled all of them with “Aidan” and the date written in blue pen on the back. He can remember every single captured instance.

There's no theme to the pictures, no clear reason he's been given them other than that Dean clearly had taken his picture way more than he'd realized. He smiles at one of himself asleep in Dean's trailer, wig on and dead to the world. They're nothing extraordinary. It's not some grand gesture. He still feels like he's been given something precious.

Aidan tucks the photos back in their envelope, except for one of the very first ones in the set, which he places on the kitchen counter before knocking back a melatonin and surrendering himself to sleep for the next twenty hours straight. In the picture it's a sunny day, and Aidan's hair is blowing in the wind as he drives them around, exploring on location. His mouth is open like he's speaking, and Dean is in the passenger seat taking the photo on his phone. He remembers how cold it had been so high up in the mountains, how he’d borrowed Dean's glasses for the glare on the road, how they'd finally stopped needing to fill the silence. He remembers what he'd been saying with perfect clarity.

“Gosh, I love it here.”

“Yeah?” Dean had been distracted, clearly trying to take a picture of Aidan.

“Yeah. I... I’ll miss you, Deano.” His heart was in his throat.

“Guess you better come back and visit sometime.” Dean’s phone was nowhere in sight, now.

Aidan’s pulse thundered in his ears. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.” 

Dean’s grin was blinding even through the sunglasses. And Aidan had thought  _ maybe _ .

_ Maybe he feels it too _ .

* * *

 

Dean visits Aidan a while later in Dublin when neither of them have anything to be working on. They don’t sleep together til the third day Dean’s there. Things between them are as easy as they’ve ever been and Dean would be lying if he said that’s not what he’d flown halfway around the world to find out. 

Later that night, after they’d both showered and Dean had spread himself out on Aidan’s bed to eat his dinner straight out of the takeaway box, Aidan surprised him by pulling out his guitar.

“You don’t mind, right?” Aidan was sitting barefoot on the hardwood floor in the living room.

“No,” Dean replied. He’d always been a little curious about whether Aidan was any good.

The short answer was: yes.

Dean watched as his fingers worked over the guitar strings, his voice being swallowed up by the floorboards and the ceiling fan and the streetlights. Dean had watched him sing, transfixed, 20 feet and one doorway and an entire universe away, wanting to reach out and touch but afraid to interrupt.

In the voice note he’d ended up recording, Dean can hear his own breathing over the track like a whisper, proving that it was real. Dublin and Auckland are about as far apart as anyone can get, but at least he has this one piece of Aidan to keep and take with him. For the first time, he wonders if this is how Aidan feels about the photos he’d given him after the Hobbit, and whether there’s an underlying motivation to Aidan stealing his clothes every chance he gets. He thinks about Aidan constantly, these days. He has all these...  _ feelings _ . About Aidan. And he doesn't know what any of them mean. But he knows Aidan’s voice that night was only for him, and he’s got the proof living in his pocket. 

The only problem is, it’s not enough.

* * *

 

A few months later he and Aidan get the chance to meet up again. They’re in a bar and Dean is getting sensationally drunk. Aidan is pressed up next to him, jackets slung over the backs of their chairs. It's loud and chaotic and it's exactly where Dean wants to be. He steals the rest of Aidan’s beer and laughs loudly when he gets yelled at for it. Aidan quirks his lips at him indulgently, and Dean can’t look away.

Before he knows it they're walking to the hotel, and the cold air feels great, and he's taking off his jacket again and Aidan's laughing with his teeth, the first time Dean's seen them flash out since he landed in Switzerland.

Now they're slumped in the elevator and Dean is talking a mile a minute, and Aidan isn't talking at all. Aidan’s never been a particularly loud drunk, even though he plays the part sometimes if he’s around other people. Dean is also definitely the more intoxicated of the two, so it could just be that Aidan is more in possession of his faculties at the moment.

Dean follows Aidan into his hotel room because they're not even close to sober enough to fall asleep yet, but they are drunk enough to want to be horizontal as soon as possible. Aidan sort of starts to get undressed, but then gives up on changing into his pajamas after removing his jacket and his right sock, which is the first sign that he might be pretty drunk, too. Not as drunk as Dean. Dean likes to think doesn't do anything by halves if he can help it.

He reaches over and taps Aidan on the wrist after they've been talking for a while. It's nice to talk with him again like this. They've been talking for hours and if Dean weren't so tired he'd want nothing more than to talk with Aidan til the sun comes up. He misses it. He misses most things about Aidan. They still haven’t talked about what they are to each other, but they’ve been keeping in touch. Texts, mostly, and Aidan’s drunk dialled him once or twice. He’s missed seeing Aidan’s face when they talk. “I miss you,” he says, very seriously and intentionally. “A lot.” It’s hard to sound sincere while drunk, but for Aidan he thinks he can manage it.

Aidan looks at him like he wasn't expecting that. His laugh lines crinkle up around his eyes. He doesn't say he misses Dean too, but he pokes at Dean's dimple, and he's smiling like he probably feels the same way even if he won't say it.

They're lying next to each other, close enough to be sharing heat and that little bubble of privacy and obliviousness that comes only once Dean is very drunk and very comfortable. His vision spins if he tries to focus his eyesight too much farther than Aidan's face and body, so he doesn't try. He wraps his fingers around Aidan's wrist and Aidan grins at him with loose cheeks and a happy wrinkle in his forehead. They're both blinking more slowly, like maybe it's time for bed. Bed sounds like a great idea. He mentions this out loud.

Aidan giggles at his boozed up mumbling, and closes his eyes as if to settle in right then and there. Dean can work with that, he supposes. He turns his head and barely has to lean in at all to press a kiss to the corner of Aidan's jaw. He misses by an inch or two, ends up with his mouth on Aidan's pulse point, but Aidan is smiling either way.

He starts awake a few hours later and tries to push himself upright, but his arm has fallen asleep. The lamp on the side table is still on. He looks around to switch it off and is hit with an intense wave of dizziness. Aidan rouses, taking in the sad state of affairs above him. Dean's hangover has unfortunately already started to settle over him.

"Don't even try to get up," he mumbles, still half-asleep but so good. Such a good friend. Dean blinks and nods his assent. Aidan knows him well. He's a good guy. "Lay down. C’mere." Now Aidan's tugging on his sleeve, so Dean goes with him, allowing Aidan to settle him on top of his chest.

Dean falls asleep quietly after that, with his fingers brushing gently against Aidan's side, Aidan's hand in his hair, Aidan's heart beating low and steady under his ear.

* * *

 

Aidan is home the next time he sees Dean, stepping out of a café in Dublin, and Dean appearing right there in front of him.

"Hi," Aidan exhales, and feels a wide grin tugging at his face. He has no idea why Dean is here, in Ireland, but happiness is winning out over his confusion. It's been a long time since they've seen each other. A long time since he's wished he could clear his schedule and book a flight to Auckland. Years, maybe, but it’s not something he likes to think about.

Dean smiles, and it's apprehensive, the way he adjusts his bag over his shoulder and squints up at Aidan. "Hey, you."

"What— why are you in Ireland?" Aidan feels off, like he doesn't remember how to act around Dean, which is stupid. They're friends. They were best friends. Why should he be so cautious?

Dean folds his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. "I, um. I didn't know where I wanted to go—what I was looking for." His gentle voice is so familiar. "I was just visiting a friend in the U.K. And I wanted to feel close to you, I guess." He tacks this on at the end as if Aidan's heart isn't threatening to burst out of his chest more and more every second.

“You here to take pictures?" It’s not at all what Aidan wants to ask. He wants to say  _ You came here for me? Why did we drift apart? You felt it too, right? How we let each other slip away. Do you regret it as much as I do? What if I told you I’ve loved you all this time? _

"Yeah.”

Aidan hasn't stopped smiling this whole conversation and he's probably starting to look a little crazy. He feels crazy. He has no control over his face. Dean is  _ here _ . 

Dean finally looks at him full on, and Aidan feels some of the tension ease out of his chest. "Why, you wanna model for me again?"

"Actually, fuck yeah, I do. I've got six days off and nothing to do.” Dean looks surprised, like he'd expected Aidan to joke it off instead of calling his bluff. "Walk with me?" He asks, turning to lead him back up the street. “I’m serious, I have nothing better to do, I'd love to do a shoot with you. Or, like, just hang out and catch up or something.”

Dean smiles back, easy, like long mornings in Aidan's trailer, like waiting for the sun to rise, like they never parted. "Sure," he says, a little breathless. “I didn't really have a plan, when I flew here. So.” He doesn't finish the thought, but Aidan can hear that he wants to say “thank you” at the end.

Dean's footsteps fall into place next to his as they walk, hands stuffed in the pockets of their jackets, and he wishes he had Dean's hands so that he could take a picture that captured how he felt now that he knows Dean flew here just to feel close to him. He wants to know what that knowledge looks like on camera. Dean smiles again, his face turned to the sidewalk this time, and Aidan swears he can feel it in his teeth.

Later, once they’re back at his flat, Aidan realizes how comfortable Dean looks moving around in his space. He knows where the towels are and how to set the coffee maker. Aidan grins impishly each time Dean picks up a book from the shelf and realizes it’s actually one of his, and softer, when Dean notices the photos from the Hobbit that Aidan still keeps around in a little pile on his cabinets.

Slowly, they settle back into a familiar rhythm. Waking up, seeing each other first thing in the morning, close enough to touch, coffee on a patio a block or two from his apartment, kicking Dean's shoes out of the entryway when they get home. They try to paint together and end up getting paint all over one another. Aidan watches the flower Dean painted onto his inner arm rinse off in the shower and doesn't stop smiling all afternoon.

* * *

 

It’s been five days and Dean’s still here. Aidan has to leave tomorrow for Cornwall to finish shooting Poldark, and he has no idea what Dean's plans are. They haven’t talked about... a lot of things, honestly. They haven't talked about their relationship, which is par for the course by now. It's something that’s always bothered Aidan. They care about each other enough to not let this thing die, but they won't tell each other how they feel. 

Aidan knows he has been in love with Dean for years, now. He’s got an empty space in his life where Sarah used to be and he’s sick of not knowing whether it’s okay for Dean to fill it. Aidan doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. What does he want? A label? A place for himself in Dean’s life? In his home? It would be a big step, admitting that much out loud, but Aidan figures he probably shouldn't feel so off-base about how lovestruck he feels when Dean literally flew around the fucking globe to see him.

Tomorrow, they’ll both have to leave, but he’s only got a month left of filming, and nothing lined up for months after that. He thinks about what it would look like, living with Dean. He realizes this is the answer he’s been looking for. His key on Dean’s key ring. His things in Dean’s house. Something concrete to tell his mother and sister about.

_ I wanna be closer to you _ , he practices.  _ I’ve wanted this forever. Please say yes. _

Aidan walks into the kitchen wearing one of Dean’s cardigans and finds him already sitting at the table.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

Dean looks up from his coffee and puts down his phone. “Sure thing.”

* * *

 

They’re back at the house in Ponsonby, or near enough, when Dean proposes. It’s been almost a year since Aidan moved in with Dean. It’s summer again, and Dean has spent most of the past six months setting up shop in a new studio in downtown Auckland. He's not quite ready to go back to doing movies right now, but he’s happy— he’s doing what he loves, and he’s lucky enough to spend time with the person he loves more nights than he doesn’t. Sometimes, Aidan goes back to Europe for work, and sometimes Dean even comes with him for a week or two, but this is their home now. This is his life. Sometimes it feels so perfect it takes his breath away.

They’re holding hands, just walking back from lunch, and Dean can see the ocean behind the row of shops as they pass. The sun is shining and he loves the man beside him with all his heart and he knows Aidan reads it in his eyes every day but his heart just won’t stop pounding, the air keeps escaping his lungs. Dean has never felt so overwhelmed in his life. He does what Aidan’s taught him best; he takes a leap of faith.

"I want to marry you." 

Aidan, because he has the patience of a saint and knows Dean very well, stops walking and waits for Dean to finish his thought. Dean is so fucking grateful for him.

"Not—not like, right now, but... someday. I want to—to be—I want that." Dean lifts his eyes and doesn't even ask the question, but it's probably alright because Aidan's grin is slowly spreading across his face as he realizes what it is Dean's asking, how much it means for him to be asking anything at all.

"Yes." He says it on an exhale, and tips Dean's forehead to rest against his own. Dean can tell he's still grinning like the absolute goof he is, can hear it in his voice.

Dean leans the rest of the way in and kisses him to feel Aidan's smile against his lips.

* * *

> _  
> “He looks at him for a moment, affronted. And then... smiles._
> 
> _And if it begins anywhere, it begins here - the two best friends ever.”_
> 
> \- [“A Study in Pink” final shooting script](http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/Sherlock-A-Study-in-Pink-final-shooting-script.pdf), p. 122

**Author's Note:**

>  **Aidan, absolutely shitfaced in some rando pub in Dublin:** Fellas, Is It Gay to constantly be thinking about your best mate who’s also sometimes your brother, but who you haven’t seen in a few years, even though you kinda hooked up once?  
>  **fellas:** okay what the fUc k
> 
> i'd like u all to know that this work does not reflect any factual information or my actual opinions of these people at all. also, I like 100% wrote this for myself and no one else, but if you liked please leave a kudos/comment! i didn't have a beta and it'd make my day to know that people other than me enjoy reading this.
> 
> And here, as a final parting gift, i give you ["aidan.mp3"](https://youtu.be/PSB6dIymXhE?t=57), but don't think too hard about Aidan singing this because ouch ooh his voice singing those notes would literally melt my heart.


End file.
